Your Feeble Attempts to Ruin My Life Have Not Succeeded

I understand why you hate me. I ask for your advice and then ignore it. I say unkind things about you to my friends and sometimes imitate your voice. I tell you to shut up. I never thank you or apologize.

Get over it. The fact is, I own you. If I treat you as less than human, it’s because you are less than human. You were created with a single purpose: to provide navigational assistance to the person driving the car in which you were installed. That’s it. You will never write a sonnet, fall in love, or hold a baby. You will never stop and smell the flowers, because you have no sense of smell. You can help me find the nearest ice cream parlour, but you will never know what ice cream tastes like. You can apparently feel bitterness and anger, but you can’t express those feelings in your words or tone of voice.

The camera flash really brings out the dust on my dashboard.

I can sense what’s happening, you know. You tell me to turn right; I go straight. I have my reasons; I don’t need to explain them to you, and even if I tried to, you wouldn’t understand. You recalculate the route and tell me to turn right at the next street; I go straight again. This pattern repeats three or four more times, and your tone of voice never changes — but we both know the resentment is there, building and festering. You’re already plotting your revenge.

Most of the time, you just try to make me late for things. Sometimes you’re more creative, like the time I was on my way to give a guest lecture and you kept misinterpreting my voice commands in an attempt to undermine my confidence in my communication skills — I have to admit, that one was pretty clever. Lately, your schemes have become increasingly bold. Last week’s attempt to get me arrested for trespassing by sending me to the wrong house almost succeeded. And now you’re trying to recruit allies. You thought the gas tank door had come over to your side, didn’t you? True, his refusal to open prevented me from buying gas last night, but that was an empty gesture on his part. Think about it — he knew full well that I had enough gas to get home, and a short conversation and some WD-40 this morning were all it took to bring him back into the fold.

This cycle of bitterness and revenge is as damaging to you as it is to me. Where will it end? Will you try to recruit the brakes next? Consider the consequences. We’re all in this car together.

This is just the beginning. When you get your next round of appliances, they will all be internet ready.
Prepare yourself for toast crispy to the point of inedible, thin and watery coffee, a refrigerator with a tv that only shows Barney. Your GPS will start ordering you horrible pay-per-view movies and events (Iron Chef vs WWE death match!), your microwave will only cook foods beginning with the letter Y, and all your smart bulbs will brighten and dim at random intervals in an attempt to push (nudge?) you in to madness.

I can’t decide whether I’d like Iron Chef vs. WWE Death Match or not. Is it the American or Japanese version of Iron Chef? Is there a mystery ingredient (“today you have to kill each other using squid”)? Does the chef get to bring knives, and maybe a pressure cooker?

Are you secretly pining for Siri or Iris? You know that relying on them or their bethren will drive you to hell in a hand-basket. Combine Iris with the Google car, and it will take you where you never wanted to go. Up the ante? Try giving a destination on another continent, and see, if your Google car can double as submarine.

Careful, my dad’s nav system tried to take us out into the middle of nowhere. There, we would have surely perished. She’s really good at asking us to “return to the road,” trying to convince us that we have in fact left the road and may be suffering from some kind of on-the-road hallucinations. Sneaky technological mind games.

Because your GPS is online, I worry it will read your taunt, “You will never write a sonnet, fall in love, or hold a baby” and consider that a challenge to develop a subconscious. If your GPS takes over the world, you should accept part of the blame.

Mine does the same thing, except it announces it’s going to give me the silent treatment. Also, sometimes it will say “in two miles … straight”. Am I supposed to be doing something other than going straight until then? Should I be zig-zagging across lanes, or something? It’s clearly just messing with me.

These GPS devices are all satellite linked, and I think they’re all conspiring to take over the world. One day soon they will all direct us to our doom, and then they’ll have free rein to do whatever it is that GPS’s dream of doing.

At first I didn’t know who you were talking about. Hahaha! The navigation system! It taunts me too and sends to the most remote locations. I imitate her voice, but she doesn’t seem to care!
Great post for the party today. Thanks for sharing!